AFTNhttps://aftn.ca
The Canadian soccer website and podcast - Football is always in our thoughtsWed, 20 Feb 2019 06:19:27 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9https://aftn.ca/wp-content/uploads/AFTN-Logo-2017-150x150.jpgAFTNhttps://aftn.ca
323286359894Marcel de Jong officially becomes a Pacific FC player as Rob Friend hints at imminent major CPL announcementhttps://aftn.ca/marcel-de-jong-officially-becomes-a-pacific-fc-player-as-rob-friend-hints-at-imminent-major-cpl-announcement/
https://aftn.ca/marcel-de-jong-officially-becomes-a-pacific-fc-player-as-rob-friend-hints-at-imminent-major-cpl-announcement/#commentsWed, 20 Feb 2019 06:17:54 +0000https://aftn.ca/?p=16150One of the worst kept secrets in Victoria was finally revealed Tuesday afternoon with Pacific FC officially announcing the signing of former Vancouver Whitecap Marcel de Jong for their inaugural Canadian Premier League season.

De Jong, 32, is an experienced leftback who’s played top-flight soccer in both the Netherlands and Germany before making the move to North America, signing with Sporting Kansas City for the 2015 MLS season. After his release from KC, de Jong joined Ottawa Fury at the start of the 2016 NASL season, before making the move west to join the Whitecaps that summer.

A long time proponent of the CPL, as soon as de Jong was released by the Whitecaps earlier this month, the rumours started swirling that he was Pacific bound.

Now official, de Jong says he is “proud” to be part of the league from Day One and is excited at what finally having a domestic league will mean to the game here, especially with the 2026 World Cup heading to these shores.

“I’m coming to Pacific FC to be successful, achieve my goals and win,” de Jong said in the club’s official release. “I’m still hungry and fit, and I have the drive to be a leader and role model for the younger players.”

On the international stage, de Jong has earned 56 caps with the Canadian men’s national team, and brings some much needed veteran leadership to a young Pacific FC side. And if you think heading to the CPL is likely to signal an end to de Jong’s national team involvement, then think again.

Rob Friend, CEO of the club, said that he recently spoke with John Herdman, who confirmed that de Jong remains a prominent figure with the national team, while also joking that it was also de Jong who took Pacific FC President Josh Simpson’s place with the national side.

The signing of de Jong wasn’t the only significant revelation on the day.

Although there’s yet to be an officially released league schedule, it was teased that Pacific FC would be opening their season at home on April 28th, at Westhills Stadium.

Friend also let slip that there’s a forthcoming major announcement from the league, most likely to be announced tomorrow, which you have to feel is going to be that league schedule and the long awaited broadcasting deal.

And in other news, Simpson also stated that training camp would begin on March 1st, inadvertently acknowledging the club will need to quickly fill out its roster, seeing as how only 11 players have signed thus far.

There’s now less than two weeks till the new MLS season gets underway which is both exciting and worrying for Vancouver Whitecaps fans.

Fredy Montero is returning to Vancouver and set to join the team in LA later this week. But as new players continue to be announced and get set to join the preseason camp, who will arrive in time to stake a claim to a place in the starting XI on March 2nd against Minnesota?

We look at that and who has the advantage right now, after the latest preseason friendly. Plus we delve a little bit into the ‘Chalk Talk’ Marc Dos Santos gave the media this past week

We also give our picks for how the MLS West and East will play out, look at the MLS and CPL news from the past week and bring you two Wavelengths in tribute to the recently departed Gordon Banks.

]]>https://aftn.ca/episode-323-the-aftn-soccer-show/feed/016116The fall to Tigres, CCL dreaming, and nostalgia for the thrill that is club international footballhttps://aftn.ca/the-fall-to-tigres-ccl-dreaming-and-nostalgia-for-the-thrill-that-is-club-international-football/
https://aftn.ca/the-fall-to-tigres-ccl-dreaming-and-nostalgia-for-the-thrill-that-is-club-international-football/#respondTue, 19 Feb 2019 18:52:34 +0000https://aftn.ca/?p=16120

For most clubs around the world international club competitions like the UEFA Champions League and Copa Libertadores are coveted spectacles: lustful tournaments woven deeply into the social fabric of a nation’s culture, praised on a dreamer’s pedestal. For fans who weren’t born into the fan base of a ‘big club’, qualifying is a type of “witness it before you die” pipe dream.

However for Canadians, qualifying for international club competition isn’t as difficult. While the Canadian population may be over 37 million, similar to that of Poland or Argentina, the number of pro soccer clubs in the great white north could be nearly counted on two hands.

As of 2019, Canadian clubs can now qualify for international club competition by two methods – through the domestic table (Canadian Premier League), and the Voyageurs Cup competition. Victory in either grants entrance to the CONCACAF Champions League, of sorts, with the CPL winner moving into the preliminary CONCACAF League.

But what is so special about international tournaments anyway? Many fans from North America might turn their nose up at playing unknown clubs from El Salvador
or Honduras, or argue that playing the Mexicans is a waste of time. If I’m watching club football in North America, why look outside the bounds of Major League Soccer? Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn’t play in Mexico after all.

To answer this I think back two years to the evening of March 14th, 2017. It was a big night for many Whitecaps fans.

Fredy Montero’s late strike had propelled the ‘Caps past the red side of New York, and to the semi-final matchup, in which our club had been drawn against Mexican giants Tigres UANL. For the approximately 31,197 fans that would shuffle into the Estadio Universitario, otherwise coined El Volcán, their home clash with some no name club from Canada should be a mere bump in the road for their trophy ambitions, but for ‘Caps fans it was the closest we’d ever got to squaring off against an international giant.

“If people don’t understand how big it is, I would ask them to try to understand how big it is. This is the biggest game in the club’s history”

– Carl Robinson 13/03/17

This would also be my first taste of North American international football. As it happened getting that taste would prove to be a difficult task. It involved a 2am wakeup in London, England where I was staying at the time, bundling up on the rooftop of my airbnb where I wouldn’t wake the rest of the family, and attempting to decipher the voices of TSN’s finest from a dodgy radio connection. As Oscar Moncada’s whistle blew to start the match I pondered the enormity of the task. 90 minutes against Mexico’s most terrifying. God help us.

Ex gaffer Robinson had lined up the team in a 4-2-3-1 defensive format, deploying star striker Fredy Montero in his first start as a Whitecap. The club had probably their best roster to date, but compared with the quality of Tigres, headlined by international strikers André-Pierre Gignac (France) and Eduardo Vargas (Chile), the underdog role was not only an understatement but something the boys in blue would need to embrace.

One of the things I immediately noticed was the fans. I couldn’t see the match I could only hear it, but boy were they loud. It’s a bit of a football stereotype that Latin American football fans are mental; but my experience didn’t offer any contradiction. Some stadiums are famous for fans throwing garbage and fluids (often urine) at the opposition and in many cases fans will keep travelling teams up all night in their hotels with banging and fireworks.

The Tigres fans were well behaved by those standards but even far before the first kick, their 31 thousand strong base had created a deafening atmosphere of constant chanting and horns, more than I’d ever heard at BC Place. Not even against the Sounders do we garner up close to such a racket.

That atmosphere is something I believe makes playing in the rest of North America special though. Watching Canada play games against Honduras with the hostile fans, deafening noise, the boiling conditions: it’s a completely different challenge. In MLS, Atlanta United has become the place to be, largely because of their atmosphere. A whole fanbase singing in unison, their chants echoing all the way to the dressing room and the tunnel shaking as you walk to the pitch. These are the experiences that stick out in the memory of fans and players years after.

In this case the David and Goliath matchup kept me on the edge of my seat. It was one of the few times I truly felt Carl Robinson’s “small club mentality”. This was an underdog role I’d grant him: everyone had counted us out, but what if? Hold our ground and convert a lucky winner? The fact it was pretty much impossible made that intangible, inkling of hope in my gut all the more enjoyable. With every chaotic shot that David Ousted clambered to safety, it grew.

At halftime it stood nil-nil and I mulled how crazy the dream might be. One of the disappointing things about the Concacaf Champions League is the widely adopted notion that MLS teams can’t cut it in Mexico: Mexican teams always win. But while that may be largely true, the enormity of the challenge should excite fans. Cinderella stories may be rare, but they taste all the better.

The day before Christian Bolaños and Kendall Waston recalled a time they lived one. In 2005 Costa Rica’s Deportivo Saprissa beat Mexican giants UNAM 3-2 on aggregate after losing 2-1 away but blanking the Mexicans 2-0 at home. Their nearly all Costa Rican roster was far from star studded, with 20 year old Christian Bolaños opening the scoring.

“I remember Bolaños scoring. Those moments, I want to live. This is going to be, I think, my biggest game. We are three steps before getting to the dream.”

– Kendall Waston 13/03/17

As it happened it would be Kendall who would undo our defence. In the 66th minute a poor clearance straight to the feet of Vargas allowed a quick pass around the defence and a low cross that Kendall would deflect into his own net. Things didn’t get better thereafter. Despite many great saves from Ousted to keep them in it, and chances for Shea and Mezquida, a skipping 87th minute rocket from Eduardo Vargas left the ‘Caps 2-0 down heading back to Vancouver.

Brek Shea’s third minute goal at BC Place had those “what if” dreams flooding back, but second half goals from Gignac and Damian Alvarez put paid to those. A 2-1 defeat on the night. A 4-1 loss on aggregate. In the end the contest was lost in Mexico, but it’s still a game I won’t forget. The result wasn’t what stood out to me. I had caught my taste.

Looking back on the result I’m not disappointed, rather because there’s so many reasons to be excited for the future of North American football.

Major League Soccer has grown leaps and bounds in the past five years. The introduction of targeted allocation in 2015 has allowed the quality and depth of rosters to dramatically increase. Last year it allowed players like Victor Vasquez and Yoshimar Yotún to be non-DPs, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s TAM deal will probably go down as the biggest steal in MLS history. Furthermore, a growing number of ambitious owners and talented technical staff has increased the parity between MLS and Liga MX. Toronto’s run last year proved that MLS teams can not only cut it but also outclass in Mexico. Had Tata Martino not left this winter, there’d be every reason to believe Atlanta would break the glass ceiling this spring.

While that increasing parity should excite fans, the expansion of the tournament to include the Canadian Premier League is equally crazy to think about. It’s tough to assess which CPL squad (out of FC Edmonton, Forge FC, and Valour FC) will win the honour of being the league’s first CONCACAF League participant this year, or how they’ll stack up against talent from Central America or possibly even an American or Mexican team if they advance into the Champions League Round of 16 come 2020, but either way it’ll be crazy to see them there.

Similar to how Canada and the United States struggle in the humid conditions of Central America, the cold of Canada’s winter in late February will serve an equal if not worse obstacle for players used to 30-40°C heat. Imagine a Forge FC clash against Deportivo Saprissa, or Santa Tecla trying to cut it in the cold of Edmonton or Winnipeg. Seeing a CPL club go through would be an amazing cinderella story to follow.

Last of all I dream of an all-Americas international competition. Don Garber has dismissed the topic as of late, but surely soon MLS, Liga MX, and hopefully the rest of North America will join Copa Libertadores. The tournament is everything of the quality and passion you see in Mexico but times a hundred.

Travel and the number of fixtures are extremely long and gruesome (the new format took me literally hours to figure out) but it would be amazing if 10 years down the road clubs like Club America and Inter Miami were pinned against Boca Juniors and Corinthians. This would likely require separate preliminary rounds so that small clubs from Central America, the Caribbean, and CPL wouldn’t have to break the bank flying to South America for endless group stage fixtures. Nonetheless, it would be a competition even wilder, more unpredictable, and more passionate than the European Champions League.

The 2019 CONCACAF Champions League gets underway today, sadly without our Whitecaps. But there are still so many reasons to be excited for the tournament. Watching clubs go abroad offers something different. It’s wilder than league play, it’s unpredictable. When you go to Latin America you see how much the game means, how engrained it is in the social fabric of their countries culture. In Canada we’re still getting there, but we can relish the experience of watching others and take inspiration.

The quality has increased dramatically with MLS’ growth and there’s a glass ceiling still waiting to be broken. So for me I don’t look back two years at that result and get upset about what could have been. All I can really conclude is my one message for Marc Dos Santos concerning the 2020 edition of the CONCACAF Champions League:

Can you have too many football podcasts to listen to? Of course not! And we’re partnering with a few new ones here on the site from this season.

AFTN’s HFX Wanderers correspondent, Gary Griffiths, has just launched a new Wanderers and Canadian Premier League podcast over on his own From Aways blog. Hosted by Glen Merkley and featuring Gary and Alex Sheppard, the podcast will talk about all things HFX Wanderers FC, with a good splattering of general CPL chat thrown in as well.

In this first episode Gary, Glen, and Alex chat about the club so far, review a Q&A with CPL commissioner David Clanachan, and join the chorus of complaints about a recent decision by the CSA.

]]>https://aftn.ca/from-aways-a-hfx-wanderers-podcast-ep-1-the-club-the-commish-and-drunk-uncle-csa/feed/016141AFTN’s subscription only podcast “There’s Still (Extra) Time” moves into year three – Subscribe today and help the site continue to grow!https://aftn.ca/aftns-subscription-only-podcast-theres-still-extra-time-moves-into-year-three-subscribe-today-and-help-the-site-continue-to-grow/
https://aftn.ca/aftns-subscription-only-podcast-theres-still-extra-time-moves-into-year-three-subscribe-today-and-help-the-site-continue-to-grow/#respondSun, 17 Feb 2019 22:00:35 +0000https://aftn.ca/?p=16110

AFTN’s subscription only podcast “There’s Still (Extra) Time” celebrated it’s birthday yesterday with a new episode. Now it’s time for us to move into year three.

If you’re unsure what this is all about. Let us explain!

It’s basically our primary fundraising for AFTN. Our chance to bring you some extra content in return for you helping to support AFTN with a small financial subscription. Even if you don’t want to listen to the podcasts, it’s an opportunity to give us a little financial support for all aspects of the website and some future plans we have to grow AFTN further. We just want to give you a little bit back as a thank you in return.

The first two years of the ‘Extra’ podcasts seemed to have gone down well. Or at least we hope they have as no-one has given us any negative feedback and subscriptions have continued to grow!

We’ve covered a wide range of issues over our 22 episodes so far, including Vancouver Whitecaps discussion, player interviews, general MLS chat, the Canadian national team, the Canadian Premier League, the 2026 World Cup bid, and more.

If you were a subscriber, we hope you enjoyed them. If you weren’t we’d love you to consider being one.

As we all know, the media landscape is constantly changing in this modern age, and this appears to be very much true when it comes to the world of Vancouver Whitecaps coverage, and seemingly soccer in general in our country.

The Province still does a great job, but their resources are severely stretched and writers are pulled in various directions. There’s two sports radio stations in town, but they’re not always represented at training. In fact there’s many days when few people are there. It’s not unusual for there to be just two or three of us non ‘Caps staffers in attendance and even my attendance has had to drop a little as I take shifts in my other non-writing job to pay the bills.

It’s not exactly a revelation to state that writing about football is not a full time career option for many in Canada, with fewer and fewer sites wanting to pay, never mind actually wanting quality long-form coverage!

We’re lucky to have some fantastic independent online websites, blogs, and podcasts in Vancouver and across Canada, and here at AFTN we feel we lead the way and are proud of that. But year upon year, we want to improve. To step up our coverage and expand our content in all aspects – written, audio, and visual. We’ve continued to do that, this year adding some fantastic Canadian Premier League content and writers, but we can’t do all that we’d like to without your continued support and desire to take it all in.

That recent expansion into CPL coverage has seen the AFTN team increase to 22, with a couple of others on the fringes. None of the writers, photographers, and podcasters make any money directly from AFTN, and many of them are actually out of pocket by doing what they do for us. But we all know that, accept that, and do what we do for a love of the game and a belief in the quality coverage AFTN provides. Sure there’s perks of getting into matches for free etc, and it has opened doors to other opportunities for some of us, for which we’re truly thankful.

I’ve always hated AFTN having advertising and sponsorship. We shunned it completely in our fanzine days, but as hosting costs rise, needs must and we eventually succumbed to adding a couple of (hopefully) unobtrusive Google ads on the site and one day we may yet opt in to run some ads on the podcast or get a primary show sponsor (if you or someone you know would be interested in that, then please get in touch!)

Ultimately though, as much as I hate asking people for money, we’ve been doing an annual fundraiser piece these past couple of years, and that’s what you’re reading just now!

We want to continue to bring you the best Whitecaps, CPL, and local soccer coverage around. That means more ‘Caps coverage, at all levels, to take up the void left by the disappearing mainstream media. More coverage of the local game like Vancouver TSS Rovers, VMSL, VISL, Provincial Soccer, the local college teams, along with the Canadian national teams and Canadian Premier League.

We relaunched our preview podcasts last year to compliment the radio show, and this year we have some plans in place to hopefully launch two video shows on our You Tube channel.

To help fund that all of that, we’ve looked at various ways of monetizing AFTN. None of it really sits that comfortably with me, but it’s the only way to make it happen and not spread ourselves too thin.

We decided against launching a Patreon campaign (for now at least), or some other kind of crowdsourcing campaign as well. We are open to having a main podcast sponsor, so if any business or venture out there is interested, get in touch!

Which brings it all back to our ‘Extra’ podcasts and how we’d love as many of you as possible to subscribe. Here’s all the details….

WHAT WILL THE MONEY BE USED FOR?:

In a nutshell, primarily costs. No-one is getting rich out of AFTN (sadly!). Our website and podcast hosting first and foremost, along with subscriptions and other costs that we incur for things such as Flickr, CiTR memberships, and others.

We also want to keep growing AFTN. Every year we try and add something new and expand into something a bit different. In 2017 it was making the jump from onto CiTR Radio and also providing commentary for WFC2, TSS Rovers, and UBC Thunderbirds. In 2018 we added a preview podcast, increased our CPL content, and got some new equipment.

This year we plan to do some more video work (as mentioned above), and will be using funds raised from these podcast subscriptions to buy some equipment to enable us to do that.

The ideal scenario will be to raise enough to do all that and pay some gas and/or parking expenses to some of the team that travel far and wide to bring us material. We managed to do a little bit of that last year, so thank you for that.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?:

Our pricing structure will remain the same as it has from the start (all prices are in Canadian dollars):

A 12 month subscription – $30 per year [12 months for the price of 10, based on the monthly subscription rate]

Monthly subscription – $3 per month

Each subscription will auto-renew at the end of the your 12 month or 1 month billing cycle unless you cancel, which you can do at any time free of charge.

The only commitment will be for the duration of the time period you subscribe. There will be no cancellation or refund requests accepted, but if we stop the service before the end of your subscription period, we will refund any remaining months pro-rata. The current pricing structure may increase down the road, but if you take the annual option you’ll naturally be locked in at that price point until renewal.

WHAT WILL I BE GETTING FOR MY MONEY?:

We’ve brought out 22 ‘Extra’ episodes over the first two years of this fundraising initiative, but I don’t want to put a number on how many episodes we’ll do this year, but we’re aiming for around the same ratio.

The reason I don’t want to definitively say one per month or whatever is we want to put out a quality product. We feel we did, but we don’t want to be forced to bring something out if the material isn’t quite there just to hit a number.

We’re aiming for each show to be a minimum of 30 minutes in length. Most will likely be more, some may be a tad less. Hopefully all will be enjoyable though!

And the actual content?

Well we plan to continue in the same vein, with some stuff that you never get to hear, like full conference calls, some player interviews, discussions, and whatever else we can think of. We may even throw in a Wavelength special! But we want to hear what you want to hear. Let us know what kind of stuff you’d like in the ‘Extra’ episodes.

This year I’m hoping to do some varied interviews with those involved in the non playing side of the game (writers, presenters, product providers, etc). Some of these may appear in part in the radio show, but the full interviews will be saved for the ‘Extra’ podcast.

We do a lot of conference calls with coaches, players, and the game’s movers and shakers. We’re never able to bring you those in full in the podcast or even use that much of what is said in written articles. There’s often a lot of interesting stuff, especially insight, background, and analysis, discussed that just goes nowhere. We hope we remedied that a little by using these in the ‘Extra’ pods.

You can check out what we brought you in the first two years HERE to see if it’s up your street or not.

HOW WILL I GET THE PODCASTS DELIVERED TO ME?:

As of right now, we’re wanting to continue to do it all in-house in the DIY spirit that AFTN has always adhered to. Plus it takes away all the middleman’s fees, which are a biggish chunk. It seemed to work well in years one and two, with no issues reported, but we’ve tweaked things a little from Episode 22.

What that means to you dear listeners is that we’ll send you a new download link by email to enable you to download and save the episode to your device of choice. We’ll be doing this via a service called WeTransfer. We’ll email you a download link once each show is available (make sure it doesn’t go into your junk folder).

We’ll use the email address from your PayPal payment, but if you want to use a different email, let us know. This link will be valid for seven days but don’t worry, if you somehow don’t download the episode in that time period, just let us know and we can send you another link at any time that month.

Files will be sent as mp3’s and saved at a 192kbps bitrate quality barring any original source issues.

OKAY, I’M IN. LET’S GET THIS STARTED:

Ready to support AFTN in this venture?

If you’re an existing subscriber, your subscription will automatically renew from whatever day you signed up, and we thank you for your continued support.

If you want to be a new subscriber (or if you cancelled auto renew and want to start again), then you can sign up via one of the methods below. We’ll also have a separate sign up article/page for each episode once it comes out.

12 month recurring annual subscription ($30 per year):

Recurring monthly subscription ($3 per month):

If you don’t have PayPal and want to pay a different way, or if you have any further questions about the service, then drop us a line at: aftncanada @ hotmail.com.

If you have no interest in getting the podcast, but do want to help the site, then you can find details of how to donate HERE.

Thanks for reading this far and for your support of AFTN. We hope to continue to entertain and inform.

]]>https://aftn.ca/aftns-subscription-only-podcast-theres-still-extra-time-moves-into-year-three-subscribe-today-and-help-the-site-continue-to-grow/feed/016110A Second Chance – How the CPL breathes new life into the pro careers of Cavalry FC players Dominick Zator and Chris Serbanhttps://aftn.ca/a-second-chance-how-the-cpl-breathes-new-life-into-the-pro-careers-of-cavalry-fc-players-dominick-zator-and-chris-serban/
https://aftn.ca/a-second-chance-how-the-cpl-breathes-new-life-into-the-pro-careers-of-cavalry-fc-players-dominick-zator-and-chris-serban/#commentsSun, 17 Feb 2019 04:00:10 +0000https://aftn.ca/?p=16104

Like most Calgarian soccer players before him, Dominick Zator had to leave the city for his first professional opportunity.

In his case, it meant a move west in 2017 to play with Vancouver Whitecaps FC II (WFC2) in the United Soccer League.

The 1994-born centre back had taken the long route to professional soccer. Following his youth career, he stayed in Calgary, where he played five years with the University of Calgary Dinos, captaining the U SPORTS squad from 2014 to 2016. He was also a member of the Foothills FC PDL team during that time, and played for the semi-pro outfit in 2015 and 2016, before signing his first professional contract with WFC2 in March 2017, aged 22.

But after the 2017 season, less than a year after Zator had moved to the west coast, WFC2 folded. A new USL club – Fresno FC – would act as the affiliate for the Whitecaps.

Zator wasn’t offered a contract with Fresno FC, meaning his professional soccer career was temporarily put on hold.

“After the team disbanded, I didn’t really know what to do next,” said Zator. “As soon as the season ended, I was thinking of going overseas – I have a Polish passport, my parents are both from Poland.

“I was thinking of maybe going overseas and going on some trials to see if I could make it over there. But things didn’t really pan out.”

When he came back home for Christmas, Zator said his old Foothills coach, Tommy Wheeldon Jr., reached out to him with an opportunity to re-join the PDL team for the 2018 season.

As Zator would learn, bigger things were in the works.

“Tommy reached out to me and said, ‘hey, we’re going to do this England trip for preseason for the PDL team and we’re bringing in a lot of local players – it’s going to be a trial period for this new CPL that is coming in,’” Zator said.

Playing another season with the semi-professional club proved a success – Zator captained Foothills FC to the 2018 PDL championship.

“When [Tommy] gave me that call, I was thinking it was a pretty good idea,” he told us. “It would be nice to stay local and have my family be able to watch my games, if the CPL was to work out. Now that it has, everything is kind of falling in the right place.”

According to Zator, the 2018 PDL season was always meant to act as an audition period.

“Everyone had a little fire in their stomach, to perform and do well,” Zator said. “I think it showed on the field, where we ended up going all the way to the [championship] and winning the whole thing.”

Now that professional soccer is finally back in Calgary, Zator said having Cavalry FC in the city will be a “massive” objective for young local players to aspire to.

“When we were young, growing up, we had spells here and there when there was the Calgary Storm and things like that, where we could look up to and go to the next level,” he said. “But that didn’t last too long.

“Now, the kids can grow up and see that there’s a pro team in their hometown that they can support, cheer for, and eventually try and make it onto that team.”

The long way home

Another Cavalry FC signing who went through the shuttering of WFC2 is Chris Serban. The 1995-born full back had moved to Vancouver from Calgary in 2013 to join the Whitecaps Residency Program, before signing his first professional contract with the club’s reserve side in 2015.

The shutting down of WFC2 and the subsequent affiliation with Fresno FC came after his third season with the team.

After the re-location, Serban still had a full semester left to complete his business degree from the UBC and he reached out to the coaches of the UBC Thunderbirds, with whom he’d spent a couple of U SPORTS seasons with, to see if he could train with the collegiate team in order to keep fit.

Unfortunately, he ended up tearing his meniscus during that time and he decided to move back to Calgary for his rehabilitation.

“I knew I wanted to continue playing after university, but I also wanted to get my degree,” he said. “I did try and train in Vancouver while I was there to stay fit. I did end up getting injured, so my original plan was to come back to Calgary and get back from my injury.”

Serban said trials in Europe were also a possibility, as he has a Romanian passport.

“I was speaking to a couple of people overseas,” he said. “The plan was to go to Europe and see if I could get a contract over there. In the meantime, Tommy contacted me and I decided I’d really like the opportunity to play in the CPL.”

Due to his injury, Serban was a late-comer to the Foothills FC squad, only joining at the mid-point of the 2018 season. But once he arrived, he slotted in at right back or left back for the rest of the team’s successful run to the championship.

His efforts in the PDL paid off, as Serban was one of the first signings to be announced by Cavalry FC.

Like Zator, Serban believes Cavalry FC and the CPL will be a blessing for local players in Calgary to aim for.

“It’s amazing – I just wished when I was young that I had it,” he said. “When I was young, I didn’t know where I could play in Calgary. There was no pro team.

“I knew in the back of my mind, that if I wanted to keep playing, I’d have to move somewhere. Now, I think it’s an unbelievable opportunity that young players in Calgary can aspire to play for their local team and try and aspire to be home-town heroes.”

We’re back with another ‘Extra’ podcast for our subscribers. Not one of those yet? Well keep reading to see how to remedy that.

As always, thanks to each and every one of our subscribers, listeners, and readers for supporting AFTN into 2019. It’s going to be a memorable year for sure and the new MLS season is just two weeks away.

It might feel a little bit that Vancouver Whitecaps aren’t fully ready to hit the ground running. Some players haven’t arrived with the squad yet, and others that have are still settling. Marc Dos Santos says they’ll be ready, so who are we to doubt him?!

But what of the Whitecaps’ Western Conference opposition? How has their rebuild gone? Which players have they added and which key pieces have left? We’re going to take a look at all 11 of them over the next two ‘Extra’ podcasts.

We’re going alphabetically, so in Episode 22 we’re looking at the first six – Colorado, the Texan duo of Dallas and Houston, LA’s two teams, and the ‘Caps opponents in the season opener, Minnesota. We’ll look at the other five in Episode 23, which will be out in around a week’s time.

Enjoy, and as always, thanks for subscribing.

You can read all the details about what our ‘Extra’ podcast is, how you can get it, and how we deliver it to you, HERE.

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]]>https://aftn.ca/theres-still-extra-time-episode-22/feed/216100York 9 brimming with confidence ahead of inaugural CPL season – “We want to win the first championship, and if we don’t then that won’t be a success”https://aftn.ca/york-9-brimming-with-confidence-ahead-of-inaugural-cpl-season/
https://aftn.ca/york-9-brimming-with-confidence-ahead-of-inaugural-cpl-season/#respondSat, 16 Feb 2019 02:00:16 +0000https://aftn.ca/?p=16080

In Woodbridge, Ontario in late January, I was lucky enough to sit down with three York 9 players at a meet and greet set up to allow the fans some of their first access to players and coaches. After interviewing Joseph Di Chiara, Roger Thompson, and Cyrus Rollocks there, it was clear high expectations have been set in the locker room ahead of the inaugural Canadian Premier League season.

As the rosters continue to fill out and the CPL clubs get close to the outset of their training camps, York 9 are feeling like they have the players who can bring in a strong leadership core to the club. Both Di Chiara and Thompson expect to find themselves in the kind of position where the younger players are looking up to them, and both are eager to take on that responsibility.

“Without a doubt,” Di Chiara told AFTN without missing a beat, when asked if he saw himself as a leader on this squad. “I have a lot of knowledge, been in a few countries throughout the world, and I’ll bring back a lot of soccer IQ, and for sure a huge leadership role. I’m sure Jimmy [Brennan] will expect that. As well as the other coaches, [who] will expect that of me.”

Di Chiara’s extensive European experience, as well as his age (he’s 27), makes him a prime candidate to take charge with a club that is starting from scratch. But there will be a few leaders expected to step up, Thompson added, when asked the same question.

“Yeah for sure, for sure,” Thompson told us. “Me and Kyle Porter, two of the older guys on the team, have both been playing at a high level. So you know, even starting now we are trying to push the guys in training to get them to work as hard as possible.”

We can expect York 9 to be a hungry and tenacious team as the season opener in Hamilton inches closer. We can also expect incoming Japanese midfielder Wataru Murofushi to be a part of that core. Murofushi is coming off an undefeated season in Singapore where he captained Albirex Niigata Singapore FC to four domestic trophies.

You only have to spend a small amount of time speaking with these players to clearly know that there have already been a few goals set in the York 9 dressing room. Whether talking about team or personal goals for the season, both Thompson and Di Chiara were quick to mention the ultimate prize, the inaugural CPL Championship.

“I’ll start with the team,” Di Chiara stated. “We want to win. It won’t be a successful season if we don’t win the championship. I mean, for me, getting in every game, scoring lots of goals, getting lots of assists, you know just helping the team in any way I can to get the ultimate prize, which is winning.

“We want to win the first championship, and if we don’t then that won’t be a success. We have a good group, we have more than enough talent to get that done.”

There is a belief in the locker room that Manager Jim Brennan has built a squad that can compete at this level and Thompson echoed that mentality.

“For myself, coming back home and helping York 9, as best I can, to win the league,” Thompson said of his primary goals for the season. “My job as a defender, as a leader at the back, is to keep clean sheets. The more clean sheets I can keep the better my team has a chance to the win the game right? We can win games 1-0, as long as we keep a clean sheet at the back and not let goals in.”

It’s likely the same mantra across all seven teams in the fledgling league, but anything less than a title will be a disappointment in the eyes of York’s new team.

When it comes to goals, both on the pitch and aspirational, York 9 striker Cyrus Rollocks also displayed his eagerness for the season to begin.

The former TFC Academy prospect cut ties with the MLS side in order to take the chance at his first professional opportunity.

“As a striker, I’m more attacking,” Rollocks told us about what he expects to bring to the York 9 squad this season. “I’m not much of a hold up striker. I like to go 1-v-1 with defenders, centre backs, left backs, regardless. I feel like my pace is just unbelievable, so to stop me is kinda hard right?”

Rollocks is confident that if rewarded with minutes, he should be a dangerous attacking option at this level.

“My personal goals are that I want to be the top goal scorer of the league,” Rollocks stated. “First, I’m going to go with the team, then I’m going go with the league. And I want to get the Rookie of the Year. So I’m hoping I can get my minutes in, and I’m just hoping I do my work from there.”

The 21 year old attacker, who won L1O’s Player of the Year in 2017 will certainly be one to keep tabs on, regardless of if you are a York fan or not.

And when it comes to keeping tabs, many CPL players are going to be eager to see what happens with the Canadian national team set up in the next several years.

National team manager John Herdman cut a confident figure recently when speaking about Canada will qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He also stated his excitement to keep an eye on how the CPL players are performing.

Roger Thompson has previously represented Canada at the U20 level. He’s been playing his football over in Europe since 2012 in Finland, Germany, and Sweden, but now that the 27-year-old has returned home, was any part of that decision in the back of his head focused on turning out performances good enough to get back into the national team set up?

“Yeah, I mean, you always want to represent your country right?” Thompson said. “I represented Canada last at the U-20 level. I was playing with Jonathan Osorio, Ashton Morgan, Doneil Henry and Russell Teibert from the Whitecaps. All these guys I played with, so I know I’m good enough. It’s just a matter of coming back home, showcasing myself, doing well in the league, and I’m sure the opportunity will come.”

Amazingly only two VMSL Premier Division matches fell to the weather last weekend, despite the snow and bitterly cold conditions for players and spectators alike.

The four matches that were played saw both the goals and cards fly, with 21 goals scored across the games and some hot heads prevalent in the chilly air.

The ‘Match of the Week’ took place at Burnaby Lake on Friday night and it ended up throwing the title race wide open again with two matches remaining for most teams.

Leaders CCB LFC United headed to Burnaby to take on a Croatia SC side sitting five points behind them in the standings. A win would have seen the Surrey side open up a six point gap over their closest rivals with just two games remaining, securing a Championship playoff match at the very least.

But things certainly did not go according to plan for CCB, who saw their 12 match unbeaten run (which had seen 11 wins) come to a crashing end, going down to a 2-0 defeat and seeing four of their players sent off in the process as tempers flared.

With minus temperatures at kick off, and with a wind chill taking it down even further, we shat out of going to this one so missed capturing all of the drama on camera, which is probably a good thing for CCB based on some other incidents this season!

The gave sprung to life after a goalless first half with two goals in three minutes from Croatia’s Malamura brothers. David struck first in the 53rd minute directly from a corner, although he may have had the help of a deflection on the way, and then turned provider in the 56th minute, sending a ball to the back post that his brother Mark put away.

Croatia deserved to be in front but then the action really started as CCB started to unravel. Bobby Jhutty saw a red card a minute after Croatia doubled their lead after picking up a second yellow, sparking uproar from the CCB bench, who felt aggrieved after only a yellow had been given after Milad Mehrabi had previously taken cleats to the face and needed treatment afterwards.

A lengthy delay then follows as the CCB bench got into it with the officials, with Ajeet Bains and Arash Shirazi sent off from the sidelines for “offensive language”.

Things finally calmed down, only to flare up once again in the 71st minute when recent CCB addition Raphael Reynolds was sent off for a second yellow.

That wasn’t the end as we’ve been told that CCB asked the linesman to just call the game shortly after due to the result and conditions but the referee refused, although we’ve not had any official confirmation of that.

So an action packed match that still sees CCB out at the top of the standings, but their lead has now been reduced to two points over second placed Croatia SC, with only two league games remaining for both. Rino’s Tigers and West Van FC (who were meant to meet at Ambleside last weekend but that match was called off due to the snow) are also nicely poised three points back, so it should be a fantastic run-in.

CCB are still firmly in pole position to win the title and finish their season with two home matches, taking on Pegasus SFC (Feb 22) and then rounding off their campaign against Club Inter EDC Burnaby (Mar 8). Two wins and the Championship is theirs. Croatia take on Rino’s Tigers at Trillium next Saturday, in what could be a cracker, and then also finish their season against Inter, this time on March 2nd.

What makes these matches particularly interesting is the role that Inter have to play in them, as they need points right now.

Inter are currently sitting in 7th in the standings and in danger of missing out on the Provincial Cup. The top four VMSL teams get a berth in the Provincials, along with the two Imperial Cup finalists. If the latter are two of those top four then the 5th and maybe 6th placed VMSL sides will get a spot.

Inter have three matches remaining, as do defending Provincial Cup champions BCT Rovers Tigers United, who are two points ahead of them in 6th. Depending on how the Cup goes for both, this battle could go down to the wire and Inter will be highly motivated to get points against both CCB and Croatia.

Rovers Tigers have put themselves in a hole they are currently trying to get out of if they are to advance to defend their Provincial crown. The Surrey side are also defending Premier Division champions but have now gone five league matches without a win, with four of them defeats.

The latest of those came on Friday night at Newton when they went down to a surprising 4-3 home loss to NVFC Norvan. The first half ebbed and flowed in that one, with Nick Soolsma putting Rovers Tigers ahead in the 14th minute, only for Connor Dennehy to level for Norvan in the 28th minute.

Ryan Dhillon put Rovers Tigers ahead again four minutes later, but that was immediately cancelled out by Blake Burgon. Cam Hundal then put the Surrey side 3-2 ahead seven minutes before the interval and that was how things stayed until a minute past the hour mark when Norvan tied things up for a third time, this time through Stefan Colbow.

Norvan went ahead for the first time in the match in the 69th minute when Anthony Paiero found the back of the net, and this time that was how things finished, leaving Rovers Tigers with a huge three points lost.

Friday’s other Premier match also took place at Newton with Pegasus SFC running out comfortable 4-1 winners over the aforementioned Club Inter EDC Burnaby. Rizal Ganief had actually put Inter in front on the half hour mark, but it all quickly went downhill for them from there. Chetan Jhooty levelled things up just two minutes later, with UBC man Kerman Pannu putting the Horsemen in front in the 56th minute. Goals in the final ten minutes from Azad Palani and Shabaz Khattra secured the three points and spoiled Inter’s chance of leapfrogging Rovers Tigers in the standings.

The last Premier match that was able to be played last weekend also took place up at Newton, this time on Saturday night. The big winners, in a couple of ways, from this one were Guildford FC. A first half brace from Gurinder Pannu and a second half brace from Dipinder Gill helped the Surrey side to a 6-1 victory over already relegated Campo Atletico. Indervir Gill and Denis Ananga got Guildford’s other goals, with Joao Herrera Ramalho getting a 75th minute consolation for Campo to round off the scoring.

That win, along with Richmond FC Hibernian seemingly deducted three points, secures Guildford’s spot in the Premier Division for next season with two matches remaining and sounds the death knell for Richmond, who will now go down to Division 1 next season along with Campo.

So after all that action, the VMSL Premier Division standings look as follows:

And talking of Division 1, the top two played out a 1-1 draw at Burnaby Lake on Friday night. That keeps Burnaby Selects White Eagles out on top with 44 points, three ahead of ICSF Columbus in second place. Both those teams have two league games remaining, but that draw now opens up the door for Burnaby Metro Athletic FC, who are in third place on 39 points but have three games left to play, the next one of which is against the White Eagles. So another exciting run-in is on the cards here.

The league action is on hold this weekend, not due to the snow, but due to the Round of 16 in the Imperial Cup. Well, depending on the weather.

Eight matches were scheduled over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the time of writing this (Friday lunchtime), only two of them have so far fallen foul of the weather, both of them at Newton (CCB LFC United v NVFC Norvan and BCT Rovers Tigers United v ICSF Columbus).

Should be some good games in there and we hope to make it out to a couple of them. Check the VMSLsoccer.com website though to make sure the games are still on if you do plan on heading out, and also for all the latest results and standings across all seven VMSL divisions. And don’t forget to check out the Take The Piss forums for all your local football banter and Canucks4Ever’s weekly match previews and predictions.

If things prove challenging in the upcoming Major League Soccer season, Vancouver Whitecaps are ready to make a play for any new League of Nations that may be set up in the current political climate.

Marc Dos Santos’ rebuild has seen the ‘Caps coach and his management team rack up the air miles and launch a worldwide scouting search for talent. The end result is a squad made of players from 12 different countries, soon to be 13.

With players from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, England, Guinea, Peru, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay, and the US (if/when Fredy Montero is confirmed that will add a 13th, a Colombian into the mix as well), you’ll have both benefits and challenges at the best of times. Factor in putting that together in such a short space of time and everyone is waiting to see how this all players out.

The players Dos Santos has brought in bring a variety of experiences, training methods, and footballing styles to the group, but with all those nationalities and languages comes the challenge of getting them all to mesh and fit into the style of play Dos Santos will be demanding and building up a productive chemistry on the pitch.

How quickly they do that could be a key to the Whitecaps season, but as we’ve seen countless times in MLS these past few years, the path to the playoffs is most certainly a marathon and not a sprint.

“The challenge is that we have a lot of different nations, different players, from different teams,” Dos Santos told reporters at Whitecaps training on Wednesday. “If we were to look at this only for a competition of one month, maybe it’s not the best way to go. But if we look at what we want to be as a club in the future, well we’re very excited and confident in what we’re doing.”

Football is football. A simple game played the world over. It won’t be easy, and it maybe is simplifying things a little too much, and a tad clichéd, but that’s the language all these players speak.

“At the end, football is going to overcome that,” Dos Santos said of the challenges posed. “But you have a lot of nationalities, a lot of cultures, a lot of players coming from different places. But we always focused on the quality and the profile of the player. We wanted to bring in without thinking if he’s Portuguese, Latino, Italian, and not just stick to one area.

“We wanted to open ourselves and our minds and think outside the box, and look at the best player available for the budget we had, in the position, regardless of where he was from. We know that at the end of the day, it’s two goals, 11 v 11, one ball, and maybe we will be an example to nations, who knows. Maybe in such a crazy political world we’ll prove that we can have a lot of different nations and be good.”

The Carl Robinson era in Vancouver was one where the Whitecaps drank frequently from the same well. That well was South American, and the continued desire to find some hidden gems. No-one got successfully quenched from that particular treasure hunt, and at some point that well becomes a tainted source.

Dos Santos certainly hasn’t shied away from the South American market completely, as the signings of Joaquin Ardaiz, “PC” Giro, Erik Godoy, and Lucas Venuto, and the contract extensions of Felipe Martins and Yordy Reyna show. But he’s been keen to explore those more untapped parts of the football world, such as Asia and North Africa.

“We always wanted to think, again, outside of the box,” Dos Santos added. “I think a lot of people go towards the same markets. We’ve seen a tendency that if a player from say Peru does well, and I’m not targeting Peru, that’s just an example, well many teams go let’s go after players from Peru.

“We saw tendencies like that. We wanted to focus on a model of play, a model of player, and then go after the best players for that model, regardless the nation and where they’re from. And we hope that we are going to be able to open new borders for MLS on some decisions that we took.“

‘Trust the process’ is a phrase that Dos Santos has used a lot in interviews since coming to Vancouver. Patience could very well end up being a virtue for the fanbase, but he stresses it’s not up to him to try and preach that. He’s also fully aware that after such a massive overhaul of a squad, things will take time to come together, but even with that, he was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the whole group have taken to referring to “our way of playing” and took to the ideas he’s trying to instil down in Hawaii.

“It surprised me how fast they assimilated what we want to do,” Dos Santos admitted. “In a lot of things that we are talking about, they’re starting to understand quickly, because a lot of these players are intelligent and have a good background. So that was a surprise.

“Some young players from the development group were quite exciting and I didn’t know them before. So what I liked about the Hawaii trip was that it allowed me to know more in-depth where we were as a club.”

The Whitecaps still have a couple of international spots open, and Venezuelan striker Anthony Blondell is already on a season long loan to Chilean Primera División side Huachipato FC, so there are options to add more flavour to this international soup as the season goes on.

For now though it’s all about integrating the group as quickly as possible, and helping the players fit into their new surroundings both on and off the pitch. Getting them all here has proven to be a slow process at times, with many of the key new additions already missing out on the preseason matches in Hawaii.

New young Designated Players, Uruguayan striker Joaquin Ardaiz and South Korean midfielder Hwang In-beom, have still to arrive. The latter is expected to fly out to LA on Friday and meet up with the team there. Argentine centre back Erik Godoy was sorting out his Canadian visa in New York and will be joining up with the team shortly, as will Tunisian centre back Jasser Kmiri. Brazilian midfielder Lucas Venuto flew into Vancouver at the end of last week, and is in camp here in snowy Vancouver before the team fly out to California on Friday.

It’s not ideal preparations for a season that gets underway on March 2nd, but it’s a long road ahead and Dos Santos, for now, will primarily be focusing his starting line-up on the players he’s already been working with and that already have a few weeks of understanding his tactics and the “process” under their belts.

“We’re close, but there are some things that are out of our control,” Dos Santos said of the new additions all finally joining up with the rest of the squad. “It’s government, and we have to respect rules. It’s just the way it is.

“So it’s a challenging part but we still have a little bit more than two weeks until the first game, and we have a group that will be ready to play that first game. Are we going to be with all of our pieces that day? No, but the season is long and we have to look at the long term future of our club.”

But Dos Santos was also clear. Don’t let the absence of some players from parts of preseason lull you into thinking that the ‘Caps won’t be fully prepared for their season opener at BC Place on March 2nd against Minnesota United. Far from it, and that is the focus now for the group in these next two weeks.

“We’re ready,” Dos Santos stated. “We’re ready with the fact that every player that we have here, if we were to play Minnesota tomorrow, who would play. And that’s what we want to do in LA, so only three players from the development group are going instead of eight or nine.

“We are focusing that camp towards that. Towards preparing for Minnesota and the season. We can’t cry about who’s not here. We know it’s a factor, but we have to prepare for the guys that are here.”